like their Celtic foes and neighbors, would be absorbed into the
all-conquering Roman power, and, merging their identity in that of the
victors, would accept their law, their speech, and their habits of
thought. But this danger vanished forever on the day of the slaughter
by the Teutoburger Wald, when the legions of Varus were broken by the
rush of Hermann's wild warriors.

Two or three hundred years later the Germans, no longer on the
defensive, themselves went forth from their marshy forests conquering
and to conquer. For century after century they swarmed out of the dark
woodland east of the Rhine, and north of the Danube; and as their
force spent itself, the movement was taken up by their brethren who
dwelt along the coasts of the Baltic and the North Atlantic. From the
Volga to the Pillars of Hercules, from Sicily to Britain, every land
in turn bowed to the warlike prowess of the stalwart sons of Odin.
Rome and Novgorod, the imperial city of Italy as well as the squalid
capital of Muscovy, acknowledged the sway of kings of Teutonic or
Scandinavian blood.

In most cases, however, the victorious invaders merely intruded
themselves among the original and far more numerous owners of the
land, ruled over them, and were absorbed by them. This happened to
both Teuton and Scandinavian; to the descendants of Alaric, as well as
to the children of Rurik. The Dane in Ireland became a Celt; the Goth
of the Iberian peninsula became a Spaniard; Frank and Norwegian alike
were merged into the mass of Romance-speaking Gauls, who themselves
finally grew to be called by the names of their masters. Thus it came
about that though the German tribes conquered Europe they did not
extend the limits of Germany nor the sway of the German race. On the
contrary, they strengthened the hands of the rivals of the people from